


There Is a Lovely Land

by yeats



Category: Borgen (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>June 28, 1992.  Denmark wins the Euros. A fairy tale ends, and something else begins. (Or, how Birgitte meets Philip.)  S1 compliant, no S2 spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is a Lovely Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictorium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/gifts).



Denmark wins.

They watch the match on Birgitte's television: Birgitte and her roommate Ida, and Ida's boyfriend Henrik, and Henrik's brother Mads. The television is tiny, and sometimes the picture wobbles at the edges like the ripples in a pond after a stone is tossed across the surface, but it doesn't matter when everyone else in the building, the city, the entire country even, is watching along.

Every time the Germans advance, sweet little Mrs. Olsen next door -- who teaches piano lessons and always leaves food out for the stray cats, even though the building manager puts up signs -- let out a prolific stream of curses. Some of the words she uses to describe Klinsmann, Birgitte doesn't know what they mean. When Denmark goes ahead in the eighteenth minute, she screams so loud that the picture frames shake.

Birgitte sits on the edge of the cramped couch. Her mother gave her a Danish flag for Christmas over her father's objections ("ostentatious patriotism is for oligarchs and Americans"); last week she took it out of storage for the first time. She thought about hanging it out of their window, but Ida didn't have any tape to fasten it, and now it's knotted in her hand. 

To be honest, she's never considered herself much of a football fan before. Her first serious boyfriend had loved Jan Mølby; she remembers staring up at a Liverpool poster the first time they ever had sex. Back then, it always seemed so silly. The world was changing so quickly; what was the point of wasting even ninety minutes watching a bunch of overpaid men kick a ball around?

Now, she knows better. Now, she leans forward whenever the Danes push the ball into the Germans' half. The muscles in her legs are taut with anxiety, as if she were out there on the pitch with them; she can feel her back teeth grinding together.

Schmeichel makes another miracle save. 

"You magnificent bastard!" Mrs. Olsen shouts.

Ida bought a Laudrup jersey yesterday, size 54 -- the only one left in the entire shop. It's long enough that she could wear it like a dress, the short sleeves draped halfway down her arms. 

"I think I'm going to throw up," she whispers to Birgitte. 

Birgitte squeezes her knee, but keeps her eyes fixed on the screen.

They run out of beer in the seventy-seventh minute. There's more in the fridge, but no one wants to move to get them. Birgitte thinks that she could probably sweet-talk Mads into getting up -- Ida has been shoving them together for the last few months, ever since she and Henrik started talking about moving in together. Thus far, Birgitte's been able to decline by telling her the truth: that she's too busy studying to date anyone. But tonight, a coffee and maybe a bit of kissing seems like more than a fair trade in exchange for something to calm her nerves. After all, she's already made a half dozen bargains with God tonight ( _I won't use your name in vain anymore; I'll be kinder to my parents; I'll devote myself to a life of good deeds and service -- just make it happen, you old bastard_ ); what's one more? 

As she's weighing her options, though, Vilfort comes up with the ball thirty yards out. Two German defenders close in from either side, inexorable as sunset, but somehow he peels away from both of them and swings his body around to fire a shot from just outside the box. The keeper dives; the ball hits the post -- and then ricochets behind him into the open goalmouth.

Birgitte leaps to her feet, pumping her fists in the air. The flag in her hand blocks her view of the screen for a moment, and she pulls it down over her head like a shawl. Mrs. Olsen is yelling next door, but so is everyone else -- Birgitte can feel the inside of her mouth go dry, her vocal cords straining. She can't even hear her own voice to know what sound she's making. Beside her, Henrik has whipped off his shirt and is waving it above his head.

When the final whistle sounds, car horns up and down the street blare out in chorus. Birgitte doesn't realize she's crying until she tastes the salt in the corner of her mouth. 

"The fairy tale has come true tonight in Gothenburg!" the announcer shouts, his voice hoarse with tears. "The Red and White are the champions of Europe!"

Henrik and Ida run to the window, throwing it open to yell out into the city. Over their shoulders, Birgitte can see their neighbors from across the street hanging out over their banisters. 

With a flourish, Mads produces a bottle of champagne. 

"Where did that come from?" Birgitte says.

"I didn't want to tempt fate!" he says, and pulls the cork with a bang. He takes a long swig, and passes it over to Birgitte. She swallows too fast and coughs, wipes her mouth and drinks more. Her entire body feels like it's made of champagne bubbles, like she could float up through the ceiling and into the sky.

"I need to go outside," she says.

Ida steals the champagne from her. "What for?"

"I just have to -- I'll be back later." She leans in, kisses Ida on the cheek and pats the crest on her jersey. Grabs her keys and her purse and ties the Danish flag around her shoulders, like a superhero's cape.

"Want company?" Mads calls out, but Birgitte doesn't answer.

Outside, pandemonium. People everywhere, wearing red and white, waving flags. Crying, hugging strangers. 

An old man grabs Birgitte by the hand, spins her around.

"We got them this time!" he says. His smile stretches so wide that she can hardly see his eyes. "Fifty years it took, but we got them!"

She lets the flow of the crowd carry her along, another speck in the sea of red and white. The sun has just set and the summer air is warm around her; the street lights seem to turn on just as she passes under them. People keep singing the first few lines of the Danish national anthem, then dissolving into cheers.

Rådhuspladsen is more crowded than she's ever seen it. The press of bodies from either side prevents her from taking more than a few steps at a time. She's scared at first, but then she gives herself over to it and winds up leaning against a lamp post, watching a group of young men in red and white fedoras dance, badly.

One of them falls out of dancing and approaches her. He's handsome, with sandy hair cropped short and a Laudrup jersey that fits him much better than Ida's. The cut of his jeans marks them as expensive, probably imported, and they hug his ass nicely.

The man holds out his hand.

"Dance with me," he says. 

Birgitte feels like she's been smiling for hours, but somehow she feels her smile grow wider. "I don't know the steps!"

"Of course you do -- being a drunken idiot is the Danish national dance!" He's laughing, but not at her. 

His friends have stopped dancing, are drifting away toward the Strøget. "You're being abandoned," she says.

He waves a hand. Another group of cheering revelers passes by, and he steps closer to get out of their path. "They said they were going to hang a scarf around the neck of the Mermaid, or drown trying. I like talking to you better."

"I don't usually talk to strangers," Birgitte says. She can tell that he'd leave her be if she wanted him to, but all of a sudden she doesn't want to be alone. Maybe it has something to do with the color of his eyes; she's always been a sucker for blue.

"It's a good thing I'm not a stranger, then." At her look of surprise, he adds, "I've seen you around the university before."

She doesn't bother to pretend she's not blushing. "Are you a student?"

"I was," he says. "I just got a job at Simtech."

"Ooh, Mr. International Big Business," she says. It's something her father might say, but she can't imagine her father's heart fluttering the same way at the lazy curl of this guy's smile. "Shouldn't you be smoking cigars and drinking cognac with the queen instead of consorting with us common folk?"

"I think the queen prefers gin," he says. "Besides, didn't I just say I like talking to you better?"

"You don't even know my name," Birgitte says. Her knees have gone all rubbery; she plants a hand against the lamp post. 

"There's an easy way to fix that."

"Birgitte," she says.

"Philip." He takes her hand, and for a crazy moment, she thinks he's going to sweep down and kiss it as if he really were celebrating with a queen. The announcer had called this a fairy tale night, after all. Birgitte was never one for all that princess stuff as a girl (the leftist's daughter, through-and-through), but this Philip…. She looks at him, and all sorts of previously fantastic things seem possible.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," he says, and somehow she can tell that he means it.

Someone has managed to connect a boom box to a speaker system, and the crowd tries to sing the national anthem again. " _Der er et yndigt land, det står med brede bøge._ "

"Nær salten østerstrand, nær salten østerstrand," he sings. He's closer to her, now, close enough that she can pick his voice out from the chorus. His hands on her shoulders, her neck -- she closes her eyes to feel him better, but then he pulls away. When she opens her eyes again, she sees that he's unpinned her flag cape, waving it in the air in time with the song. 

_Det bugter sig i bakke, dal, det hedder gamle Danmark._

"Do you know all the words by heart?" she asks.

"Nearly," he says. He settles an arm around her, and she lets him. "You?"

"Nearly." His hand on her waist is very warm; she covers it with her own.

The crowd calls out as one: _Og det er Frejas sal, og det er Frejas sal._

"Do you think we can figure it out?" she asks. 

"I think we can figure out anything together," he tells her.

And she believes him.

\--

  
There is a lovely land  
That proudly spreads her beeches  
Beside the Baltic strand,  
A land that curves in hill and dale,  
That men have named Old Denmark,  
And this is Freya's hall.  


**Author's Note:**

> dear fictorium, please enjoy this story! i know that the concept is a bit of a "meet cute," but based on philip's reaction to birgitte's speech in the first season finale, i thought maybe it wasn't too crazy to think that he was remembering the euro final too. i hope you don't mind all the football references -- i did a bit of innocent lj stalking and saw that you were a red, so i figured it was okay. happiest of happy holidays, and thank you for such a great prompt.
> 
> my entire understanding of the events of 1992 comes from: a lot of vintage telecasts on youtube, the ny times archive, and a week spent in copenhagen. apologies for any errors on that front!


End file.
